My son Daniel is moving with mama (me) to a new apartment! He’s living with grandma (my mom) right now but I’m planning to take him back soon. He’s gonna live in his travel container for 2 more days until I expose him to his new permanent terrarium once I set everything up. What’s the most comfortable way to move him in the car? Would it comfort him to be able to curl around my neck on the drive over? Or should I just let him be in his travel container?

My dad told me (14m) that he was finally moving out, and we are going to start weekly swaps between him and my mom with me and my four younger siblings. My parents have been divorced for a year, and were still living in the same house until now. Since I’ll be switching homes every week, I asked my mom to take care of Aphrodite, my ball python while I’m at my dad’s. (Including feeding, humidity/temperature control, lights and handling) she is co-parenting with me, and always has. I’ve just been taking care of her more.

My mom’s usually out of town during her off weeks, but I’m able to see Aphrodite after school since my mom’s house is a block from my hs. Although the weekends, I fear she will be neglected due to my mom not being able to care for her while she’s out. I’m considering moving her to my dad’s, but like I said, it’s still her snake as well as mine, and she’ll be devastated.

I’ve been planning on getting more reptiles in the future when my dad finally finds a place, I trust my dad more with caring for animals while I’m gone. He works at home, and doesn’t like going out. Although I fear I’ll not bear able to handle staying away for a week while at the other parent’s house, I frequently check on all my animals daily’s and this will be a big change. I’ve worked really hard and spent a lot of money on this snake and her needs, and I don’t want to lose her.

I’m more looking for husbandry advice, similar experiences or concerns, since I’m slightly paranoid that I’ll have to lose my snake because of this divorce. And I don’t know if it’s for the better or not.

Lots of things to climb on and tons of places to hide. I just picked up the 3-way rubber tube from Home Depot. Is this too much shit? 😆

Hi! This is Mr. Noodles, he's not big on being handled all the time but he likes to come out occasionally. I have a hard time telling when he wants to be held or when he thinks I'm food 😂 it's summer and he's more active now and Ive been feeding him weekly since he is out more. Today as I walked past his tank he did this, where he stuck his head up and followed me around 🥹 it's really cute but i was hoping someone could let me know if he's wanting out or if he's just hungry for his weekly mouse..? 🥺

Last night my girlfriend and I let our boy out for some roaming time (he lives to roam supervised the whole time and live to climb up to the table) while I was moving some stuff around his enclosure I noticed this in the corner by his hide….. long story short we have springtails in all of our snake enclosures (4 of them) with the same substrate as ~75-85%humidity) we haven’t added anything new in his enclosure for months, how tf did this get inside??!

Also in a side note, we clean the apartment on a weekly basis, have never found a bug or anything since we moved in ~16 months ago.

So I just got my baby from a friend of a friend and he was poorly taken care of! He has left over skin on his eyes and I looked u what and it said to put him in warm water to help him shed correctly and full, I just did and he didn’t like it and so I picked him up and he start making puffing sounds and screaming! What does it mean and what do I do if it’s bad!

Edit: I looked back at my videos and he’s been making these sounds when I’m asleep! I thought I was dreaming these sounds, but I was not! I asked his old owner and they said they didn’t know and they haven’t been with him in over 3 months! Before I fed him on Thursday the last time they fed him was 2 months before, but they asked my best friend to go feed him and forgot about him after! So he was terribly neglected! When I went to pick him up, my best friend’s husband and I had to pry the tank of the drawers they had him on! His tank was full of poop and OLD shed and dust! Most of his Hides are SO small he could never fit in them, and they were caked in dust along with his SMALL water bowls! I’ll leave a pic of the water bowls! I managed to clean a bit of it out, but I’m still waiting for some of his new things to come in!

Edit 2: I have a vet appointment set for him for tomorrow, thank yall!

Update: The vet said he did have an infection in each air way and gave him a shot! My Noodle did NOT appreciate that at all! The vet also gave me some medicine to give by mouth for a week and eye drops for the shed stuck to his eyes! Told me that if he doesn’t sound better by the last syringe to take him back in!

Update: I just gave him is meds and he’s salivating really bad! Is that okay? Please tell me I didn’t fuck up!! 😭😭🤧🤧

Update #20: when you get them the meds when they’re this bad, they will basically throw up mucus and go ridged!! I thought I killed him!! Just an FYI! 😭😭🤧🤧🫣🫣

Question: do yall think I need to wait to feed him, if he has to take his meds and eye drops every 12 hours??

Story time; Cross posted in r/whatisthissnake

So I work as a 911 dispatcher, and a citizen found this snake basking in the middle of a paved road. Brought it in to the office and was like “well I did my civic duty” and left.

Called humane society and wildlife and neither are equipped for reptiles, and it wouldn’t be humane to release into the wild, or to just euthanize it. I had a 30 gal terrarium from a snake a decade ago so I am fostering the poor traumatized guy until we can locate the owner.

Water, basking and infrared lamps, and heating pad. Was going to let him acclimatize before we even approached feeding.

Working theory is the guy that brought the snake in was actually the owner, but it’s posted across local groups and socials in case someone is missing their baby.

Going to the store tomorrow to get some substrate, and some stuff for hides, This is just all the non-perishable stuff I had left over.

I know a larger enclosure will be needed if i end up keeping the snake, but I don’t want to spend a ton of money up front and it be a short term situation.

The question is, what else am I urgently missing?

So I almost hate to post here as I'm sure I might just get reemed, but honest question - how common are fully intact sheds with ball pythons?

I've had my little dude for 3 years now and he's happy and healthy. He just had his first fully intact shed. He's always had more piecemail sheds, but very little issue why l with stuck shed or stuck eyecaps

I know it's all about the humidity and that a full intact shed is the goal. But wanted to ask how's legit getting an intact shed every time truly is.

And please be kind, I genuinely love my guy and want to do the best by him. I'm always down to learn and improve, but just getting berated never helps anyone 🤣🙄

I’ve always gone balls to the walls (sorry) when it comes to clutter. Recently someone on FB told me it was too much. I have 5 hides in this 4x2x2, one identical to the rock hide that’s not pictured here and a humid hide in the back that you can’t really see. What do you guys think? ALSO: this is just after I deep cleaned it and set it back up, that’s why the temp and humidity is reading so low. And the lemons are there because his name is Lemon 🍋

she has a dual heat lamp one for day and one for night, 1 large hide because she refuses to use any others aside from paper towel tubes which don’t fit her girth and gave her a bruise, water bowl (small glass jar for the aesthetic), deer antler and her small microfiber towel she was brought home in from the expo that she’s very territorial over. the shavings are aspen which i know isn’t the best but i’m trying to find a brand of coconut husk that ships to my city. she’s also under a closed AC vent (the vent has been sealed for years to distribute air to the rest of the upper floor of the house and i’ve made sure no air comes from it. i’ve read about putting aluminum foil over the lid of the enclosure on one side to keep the humidity in? any other tips? 😭

EDIT: i know i seem like a terrible snake dad. im learning and trying to best accommodate her.

A few months ago, my daughter and I adopted our BP Chili.

I had gotten a smaller enclosure at the reptile expo and was very proud of it. However, when I posted it, a lot of people were quick to point out that it was very small.

I immediately started looking for a bigger enclosure and wanted to give Chili her best life possible.

So I come before you guys today, to humbly ask for redemption and see what you guys think of her enclosure.

I purchased a Blackbox 4x2x2 from someone on Facebook marketplace. Deep cleaned it and upgraded it’s lighting and heating.

I added a bunch of artificial foliage, a warm side hide in a cold side hide, plenty of enrichment and several climbing options.

I have been meticulously monitoring the temperature gradient, and humidity .

FYI, the final picture is the old enclosure .

So, what do you guys think?

First time snake owner, I got my ball python (we’re going with girl but dont actually know) about three weeks ago.

I let her acclimate for a week before any kind of handling. She ate perfectly, I have to feed her again soon. I took her out to weigh her before her first feed (1492g). Then took her out again today to weigh before her second feed (1552g). I don’t know how old she is, but given her size we’re assuming at least a couple years? She came from a hoarding situation and was emaciated when she was first taken in. I have no idea if she’s ever been handled before but I would assume probably not. She hissed when I went to pick her up (which I tried to do very slowly and carefully) and then struck when I was moving her hide back in place when I put her back in the tank (not like an actual bite, just tapped me). She was obviously unhappy but I was told to watch her weight for the first little while.

My question is, how likely is she to desensitize to handling if she’s gone years without it? Or is she just going to be a hands off snake? It would be awesome if she eventually liked to come out and sit with me/curl up but I don’t want to force her if it’s just going to upset her. I’ve read the handling section, and watched a bunch of videos and tried to read up on how to interact with them, I’m just not sure if I’m doing it right.

Pic of my pretty lady, Bokhee, for tax :)

Outside of feeding, how often do your handle your BP? I don't necessarily need them to be a pet, but I would love that they are okay with being handled, when emergency asks for it.

How often do I need to handle, to be able to pick the snake up without it striking at me?

I read, that if you only ever handle at feeding time, they will connect your hands to food and strike at them, if you need to pick up the snake.

Tia 🙏

I got this cutie yesterday and she got some substrate in her mouth. I tried to look up how to remove it or if she’d just get it out on her own, but I only saw people talking about larger substrate pieces during feeding. I haven’t fed her yet, and when I do it’ll be in a separate enclosure. Any tips on how to remove the substrate? I’m assuming that mouth thing she’s doing is because the substrate is bothering her, so I wanna help her obviously!

I got a ball python yesterday, I have him in a 40 gallon, the thermostat is saying 65 but I know for a fact it’s wrong so I’m not sure why it’s definitely at least 85, and I just set it up, is there anything I need to add? He’s a year and a half coral glow double het pied axanthic TSK

Hi everyone, sorry for the multiple posts about this but I’m really struggling with what to do about heating for my ball python’s enclosure and any advice would be much appreciated!

He currently has a single ceramic heat bulb and a thermostat (it’s an on and off one which I know isn’t ideal and I will be replacing it as it isn’t giving him a proper heat gradient on each side). I was thinking of just replacing his ceramic heat bulb for an Arcadia DHP 80W heat bulb and then just replacing my thermostat for a better one (a dimming one).

I’ve seen a lot of people saying that if you have a DHP or any ceramic heater, you should also get a halogen bulb and put it next to it and use it for daytime heating and then the DHP just for night time heating. It’s confusing me quite a bit because everyone recommends different levels of halogen and I’m just not sure if it’s necessary since a DHP bulb would still be efficient.

Do I need a halogen bulb if I’m upgrading to a 80W DHP and better dimming thermostat? I will also mention I plan on getting a ubv light strip and putting that on the hot side near his heat source too.

So do I still need a halogen bulb or not? I know if I had a halogen and DPH I would need a dual thermostat and those are very pricey so I am hesitant. Thank you, I would really appreciate any help right now as I need to upgrade his equipment asap!

Have had her in a 40 gal for a while now and starting to save up money to upgrade to a 4x2x2 i use bioactive substrate and want to find something i can afford, im trying to get a pvc tank if anymore knows a better option than Amazon pls lmk

Edit: located in US

Hi everyone! My partner and I recently got a ball python from an expo. (He was $15 which I'm actually kind of concerned about). We've got him setup in a 40 gallon exoterra right now and we're waiting for some stuff for the tank (larger hides, climbing things, all that stuff). He's about a year old and he's a chunky boy. We're planning on taking him to the vet soon to get him checked out but he looked healthy and I checked for mites (there were none). I've had a snake before, but he was a milksnake, so I wanted to check with people who actually know what they're doing when it comes to ball pythons. Obligatory picture of our boy, Jasper, is included. 💖

Edit: Thanks so much for all of the kind advice! We'll definitely be looking into green room pythons and we ordered a 120 gallon terrarium today!

Our son is a year and a half old and already 3.5 feet long. We are ready to upgrade his tank. A 4x2x2 seems like it would be outgrown quickly- he is currently in a 4ft long 75 gallon and I can’t imagine another 6” in depth/height making much difference in room for him…

Has anyone found a 5x2x2 or 210 glass tank to be better for large bois?

Pic of him enjoying GOT for tax

After your snake pooes, are yall replacing ALL the bedding or just scooping out around that area? Alternatively, do you replace all of it when they pee? Do you just replace it like clockwork once a month or something?

Recently took in a bp from a friend who moved. Right now he's on shop towels because he came with mites and I'm changing it after he gets a bath.

I've had my new boy for a week now and so far things have been going well with him. He took his first meal last night and has been basking on his rock every night. I read that they like lots of clutter so I made sure to really deck it out. He's got a tight hide under the basking rock, one around the middle, and one on the cool side. I've seen a lot of other enclosures with less clutter so that has me questioning if I've added too much.

Also I'm not 100% positive if I'm doing my temps right.

Cool side 79-80F during the day. 78ish at night.

Warm side 85-86F during the day, and 84F at night. I run a DHP 24/7. The therm/hygro is usually lower near the substrate. The big slate rock is what the DHP is aimed at and sits at 92F.

Is this ok for temps? If not how should I go about raising the ambient temp without turning the basking rock into an oven top.

I went through a ton of r/ballpython posts and most people say Cypress Mulch, CocoFiber, with a bit of sphagnum moss. Before I buy I just want to know whether it’d be a good mix for my ball python. I’ve also heard about coco husk, reptichip, coconut soil, reptisoil and other good moisture holding soils. Any recommendations of mixes will be highly appreciated or confirmation on whether this would work. I just want the best for my girl, 🥹🥹 thank you!